


Shanghaied

by SpiritedYoungLady



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kidnapping, Manhandling, Rescue, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2019-05-20 13:01:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14895099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpiritedYoungLady/pseuds/SpiritedYoungLady
Summary: Wyatt has a Bad Day. (Good for whumpers, however.)On a mission, thugs attempt to shanghai Wyatt. Things get worse from there.





	Shanghaied

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the 2018 whump fic exchange! Lots of elements of this (the characters, the style, the genre, writing on request) were new for me and I had lots of fun with it. (Too much fun?)  
> Could also have been titled “how many times can I make one character go unconscious in a one-shot fic” or “how many whump situations can I cram into 2k”.  
> I may end up revisiting this/expanding it in the future.  
> Prompt: "He never saw it coming."

They were at an inn somewhere in Liverpool, near enough to the sea that the wood walls smelled of salt, and Wyatt needed to think. Something was bothering him, teasing the edges of his mind, and he felt that if he could just duck outside, it would come to him.  
"Don't be too long," Lucy had told him.  
"Yes, ma'am," he’d replied.  
She smiled at him from over a book. He smiled back before donning a hat and jacket and slipping down to the dock. It was chilly, damp, and the air tasted like low tide.  
A man materialized from a shadow, and Wyatt steadied himself. He'd almost let himself get caught off guard.  
"Bit late for a walk." The man spoke with an affected upper class accent, just a tinge too crisp.  
Wyatt nodded. "Same to you," he said, and walked on.  
"Say. You're not from around here, are you?" The man was following Wyatt now, a few feet behind.  
Wyatt continued walking, sweating under the wool jacket.  
They were fast, he had to hand it to him, and they were efficient. At the first hint of tension in the air, the first flash of wrongness, he spun around, landed a knee in the man's crotch, then slammed the man's head against the same knee. The mans' face shuddered from gleeful adrenaline to shock before he dropped to the ground, unconscious.  
Before Wyatt could catch his breath, in the involuntary flash of satisfaction that dulled his attention for mere milliseconds, the others had him. There were three, at least three, and they were well practiced. Just as Wyatt thought he saw an opening, something small and terribly gun-like pressed cool against his neck.  
"Don't fucking move," a man snarled. "Johnny, check on Ackerson." He kicked Wyatt in the ribs and something crunched but didn't snap. Wyatt grunted. "He'd better not be dead. We could shoot you right here and no one would give a shit."  
Wyatt forced himself to relax, although every muscle ached for action and adrenaline still flooded through his system. For his troubles, the gun slipped down to front of his neck, millimeters away from triggering his gag reflex. He held back a cough.  
"Jack? Ackerson is breathing, but he doesn’t look good" Johnny reported. "This man'd better be worth the trouble," another man snarled on Wyatt’s left. His words were muffled -- Wyatt's left ear was pressed against grimy cobblestone.  
Wyatt eased away from the gun. "What do you want?"  
Another kick to the ribs, this time with real malice behind it. He inventoried: nothing broken. He let the pain pass over him like a flood, allowed his eyes to close for a moment.  
"You have a job, my friend?" one of them asked, a sneer on the edge of the question.  
"Yes, actually, I do," Wyatt grunted.  
"Ah, that's too bad."  
Another man chuckled a rocky, dark laugh. "We've got a new job for you, mate."  
They dragged Wyatt up to his knees, gun still pressed into his neck. One man held his shoulders, one stood at each elbow. He could feel the tension in their bodies, ready to react to any quick movements.  
"Now what?" someone mumbled to Jack.  
"No chances with him," Jack replied. "Where's that flask?"  
Moments later Wyatt's head was wrenched back, a hand holding his nose shut, and liquid was poured into his mouth. He sputtered, choked, tried to spit it out, tried to fight the men restraining him. For his efforts he received a sharp blow to the right of his head. As the world spun he found himself gulping, coughing down the liquid.  
Better not to aspirate, some dark part of his mind thought. That wasn't something 1770's doctors could handle.  
They hustled him up to his feet, keeping his arms locked behind him.  
"Hit him for good measure," Jack said, voice flat, and Wyatt's world went dark.

***

He was somewhere warm and his head hurt ferociously.  
Where was he?  
...When was he?  
He was sitting somewhere, slumped over. The room smelled of sweat, smoke, and feather down.  
Wyatt stirred, groaned against his best intentions, and tried to move his arms. They were, as he'd suspected, tied behind him.  
"He's coming to," someone said in the fuzzy near-distance. The voice was familiar -- bad familiar.  
He opened his eyes.  
The walk, the dock, the fight,all of it snapped back at once.  
"Good afternoon."  
Wyatt squinted up towards the voice. The man standing over him wore a wig. (Right. They had gone to that century.) Bad news, then. This wasn't who'd brought him in. This wasn't a working man -- must be a higher-up.  
"What brings you to Liverpool, Mister Killington?" The man had a pleasant, practiced smile. His voice was thin and nasally. "Matthew Killington, isn't it?"  
Killington? Right. The name he'd given the innkeeper their first night here. Random, as usual. A town Rufus had made a joke about once, an inside joke. Whoever these people were, they'd done their recon.  
"Not your business, last time I checked."  
"Oh, Matthew. It is now."  
One of the men who'd jumped Wyatt earlier that night handed his interrogator a piece of paper, which the man set on Wyatt's knees and waited.  
A long moment passed, and Wyatt's heartbeat quickened -- he was fiddling behind his back and had just found that the knot binding his wrists was good as useless. If he could just buy some time, keep his affect calm…  
Wyatt looked down at the paper, then back up.  
"Am I supposed to say something?"  
"Don't play coy, Killington. It's not worth it. We both know the men found those on you, and we both know they're forgeries. I'll ask you again." He leaned down so his face was level with Wyatt's. "What are you doing in Liverpool?"  
"Sightseeing," Wyatt spat.  
The knot was loose enough now for him to slip the cord off his hands at a moment's notice. For now, he held still.  
"Sightseeing?" His interrogator raised an eyebrow mockingly. "With forged papers?"  
"I didn't know they were forged," Wyatt responded. That much was true -- Lucy had said she'd gotten her hands on real papers. She'd blame herself if she found out how much trouble they'd gotten him into. If he ever got out of this, that is.  
If he ever got out of this, he’d never tell her.  
"Listen," Wyatt said, speaking slowly with a let's-talk-as-equals tone. "What do you want? I don't know who you think I am, but I’m not who you’re looking for, I promise you."  
The man ignored him.  
"Jack," he called over his shoulder, "Thank you, you can go now. And leave the tools on the bed." That made Wyatt's stomach turn. "Tools" were never any good. One man, though -- he could take down one man, if he played his cards right.  
"You never introduced yourself," Wyatt said, hoping for a familiar name, for context, any helpful tidbit.  
"Names don't matter," said the interrogator, "Although I'd very much like to learn yours, your real name."  
"What makes you think my name's not Matthew Killington?"  
Metal clinked behind Wyatt. He bent his wrists so the ropes visibly dug into his skin, hiding the fault in the knot as best he could.  
"Spies like you? Working under their real names?"  
The man was back in front of him now, and in his hands he held a pair of pliers.  
“Teeth, or fingernails?”  
Wyatt felt his pulse quickening, anxiety combined with his intense focus. His opening was coming, and he would be ready for it.  
“I could get a nice pocket of coins for teeth as pretty as yours. But....” He trailed off for effect, studying Wyatt’s face. “Could be hard to tell the truth with a mouth so full of blood.”  
When the interrogator turned to walk (slowly, primly) behind him, Wyatt took his chance. For a terrible moment his hands caught in the twine, but then the knot shook lose and he was free. He caught the man around the neck before he could make a sound, threw an arm around his neck, and began to squeeze.  
The man wilted in seconds, as Wyatt knew he would. He eased him to the floor, trying to stay quiet. As the adrenaline peak gave way he realized that his ribs hurt sharply, sending pain radiating through his chest. He grimaced, took a moment to collect himself, then began to make his way downstairs.  
Wyatt was almost out the door when the gun went off.

***

He remembered it afterward, a haze of pain and hands and shouting. He went down hard -- he must have tripped, since he’d been hit with worse before and managed to keep running.  
“Ackerson, you fool!” someone had yelled over the chaos, “You could have killed him!”  
They slammed the door shut and began dragging him upstairs. “Never should have left him alone,” someone grumbled. “Not even with Armstrong.”  
“Call the doctor,” a distant voice said as the men began to drag him up the stairs. Exactly what Wyatt didn’t need. He wanted somewhere calm and clean, time to re-group. He wanted Lucy, despite the fact that she couldn’t stand the blood and he hated her seeing him like this.  
As they wrenched him over the last of the stairs he threw his weight to his right, sending a man stumbling into a wall, cursing. The man on his left landed a vicious kick to the ribs, which was followed by a sharp crack. Wyatt lost track of where he began and where the pain ended and went spinning into darkness.

***

They’d tied him down to the bed this time. He was shirtless and a man with dull grey eyes was bending over his bare, bloody shoulder. Wyatt had barely oriented himself before pain tore through his shoulder, as if it was pulling it apart. He moaned involuntarily.  
“Ah,” said the man. “You’re awake. I’ll have the bullet in just a minute.”  
Bloody fingers appeared in Wyatt’s peripheral vision. This was worse than the pain -- he wished briefly that he’d just pass out again. At least it wasn’t leeches.  
“You didn’t wash your hands by any chance, did you?” he said through gritted teeth.  
The surgeon ignored him. A moment later, he made a victorious noise. “There it is.” The bullet dropped onto a tray with a dull plunk.  
They packed something foul-smelling that burned like hell into the wound and bandaged it. Wyatt lay there and let them -- he had no other choice. He was willing to wait longer this time before making an escape attempt, to play dirty, to pretend to capitulate -- anything to stay alive. Anything to get back to the job.  
To the team.  
“Yes, of course,” the surgeon was saying, “Always happy to serve His Majesty. I’ll just bleed the patient to syncope, then be on my way.”  
Wyatt tugged against his bonds with his uninjured arm. No luck. “Is that really necessary?”  
The surgeon smiled condescendingly. “Come now. You’re not afraid of blood, are you? Spy or not, It’s standard procedure, I assure you.  
Wyatt choked back a laugh. “Blood is the last thing I’m concerned about. Trust me, it’s really not going to help.”  
The surgeon smiled. His face seemed to be stuck on “condescending”. “Save your breath.” He glanced at Armstrong. “You’ll need it later.”  
He barely felt the knife slice across his forearm -- it was nothing compared to the deep throbbing pain in his shoulder. The hot trickle of blood running down his arm, though? That made nausea stir in his stomach.  
Wyatt closed his eyes and tried to think, but the pain and the bloodloss clouded his mind. Every new idea he approached slipped away into the darkness.  
Before long, Wyatt followed.

 

***

When he came to, someone was running hands over him, checking for injuries in a way that didn’t feel very 18th century. Someone was stroking his hand, muttering “Oh, God, why does it always go like this?” in a soft voice.  
“I guess the first-aid refresher paid off,” Wyatt said weakly.  
“Sure will have, if we get you out of here alive.” Rufus didn’t smile.  
“Hey, welcome back,” Lucy said, arranging herself so she could see Wyatt’s face while mostly ignoring the bloody mess of his shoulder. “Oh, no, don’t try to move. You’re, ah, still tied up.” She fished a handkerchief out of a pocket and caught a bead of sweat making its way toward his chin. “What happened last night? I thought you were just going out to clear your head.”  
“Got...jumped,” Wyatt mumbled. Even shifting slightly had sent his head swirling. “I don’t know what they wanted, but one of them convinced himself I was a spy.”  
“Well, you don’t have to worry about them now,” Lucy said. “For once, the local authorities were both helpful and bribable.”  
“Let’s focus on getting you out of here,” Rufus said. “You’ve lost a lot of blood.”  
While they untied him, Wyatt focused on collecting himself. When they finished he sat up slowly, sat a hand on Lucy’s shoulder, rested on the side of the bed for a moment. Rufus slipped an arm under his uninjured shoulder.  
Lucy took his other hand. “Ready to get out of here?”  
He squeezed it. ”What sort of question is that?”

**Author's Note:**

> I could have done so much research for this and I...didn't. It’s based on vague notions gathered from Aubrey/Maturin and Sawbones. I'm so sorry to the history folks. Please just chalk it up to time-travel related timeline blips or something. The vaguely defined location in the timeline and paper-thin mission were on-purpose, because, let's be real, you just came here for that sweet, sweet whump.  
> I'm usually open to concrit, but I'm not really looking for that here.  
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
